A Brief History of Positive Psychology

You are likely quite familiar with the field of psychology. But when, why, and how ‘positive psychology’ came to be is an interesting topic to consider!

Positive psychology is the study of the conditions and processes that contribute to the flourishing or optimal functioning of people and groups.

Although the practice of positive psychology is a relatively new subfield of psychology, its philosophical roots stretch back to ancient times. Aristotle believed that the highest form of being originated when humans ‘do the right thing/act morally’ and that people derive happiness by doing so. He emphasized the necessity of working on oneself every day in order to become self-actualized. His concern with happiness, intellectual and moral virtues, and the good life was called eudaimonia, or happiness in Greek. Other core elements of positive psychology such as mindfulness can be traced back to Eastern religious and spiritual traditions including Hinduism and Buddhism.

Psychology originally developed from the study of the brain, neurological system, cognition, and behavior and their interplay with cause and treatment for psychopathology and mental illness. This is often referred to as the disease model. Many treatments during the early decades of the 1900s involved the traumatic psychological injury of military personnel during the First and Second World Wars. Some psychologists disliked these clinical practices as they did not allow professionals to act compassionately and empathically toward their patients. During the 1950s, in response to areas lacking between Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory and Skinner’s Behaviorism, researchers developed humanistic psychology. Distinguishing itself from current practices, humanistic psychology championed the holistic study of persons as biopsychosocial beings. The biopsychosocial approach considers the interconnectedness of biological, psychological, and social-environmental influences on health and overall wellbeing.

Much scientific research has been conducted regarding the ancient practices of enlightenment and self-actualization described above. A few contributors get the most attention for this work. Self-actualization was coined by theorist Kurt Goldstein ‘for the purpose of being able to realize one’s full potential’. Carl Rogers described ‘man’s tendency to actualize himself to become his potentialities’ is to express and activate all one is capable of. Perhaps most well-known for his use of the term self-actualization is Abraham Maslow, however. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, he writes that “self-actualization is the highest level of psychological development, where personal potential is fully realized after basic bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled.” Maslow argued that self-actualization gives the individual a desire or motivation to achieve one’s ambitions and is commonly interpreted as ‘the full realization of one’s potential/true self.’

Maslow believed that self-actualizing individuals embodied a long list of positive qualities, allowing them to achieve this state. Having concluded that humanistic psychology was incapable of explaining all aspects of human experience, he identified various mystical, ecstatic, and spiritual states known aspeak experiences occurring beyond self-actualization. During the 1960s Maslow (with Fadiman, Frankel, Grof, Murphy, Sutich, and Vich), founded the school of transpersonal psychology, proposing that psychology’s preoccupation with disorder and dysfunction lacked an accurate understanding of human potential and incorporating these more existential belief systems into the mix.

Simultaneously Dr. Martin Seligman, known for introducing the world to the theory of learned helplessness, found that other characteristics could also be learned. Learned optimism became the groundwork for his widely administered resilience programs for children. In 1998, Seligman proposed a new subfield of psychology with a focus on what is life-giving rather than life-depleting. The foundational paper of this new field, positive psychology, was published in 2000 by Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, bringing to light research on newer concepts such as flourishing and flow. Since then, positive psychology scholars have continued to study topics such as attachment, optimism, love, emotional intelligence, and intrinsic motivation. Others began researching areas of human experience about which there was very little published research before the year 2000, such as gratitude, forgiveness, awe, inspiration, hope, curiosity, and laughter.

Well, that’s a very brief summary of how positive psychology came to be. What questions and comments do you have? If you want to learn more about current research in positive psychology, read my blogs,

The Intrigue of Positive Psychology and Why You Should Make It a Part of Your Life, Parts 1 and 2!